1989
by what-is-a-social-life
Summary: "She lost him but found herself and somehow that was everything." The story of Silena Beauregard and Charles Beckendorf set to Taylor Swift's 1989. [Inconsistent updating; see profile for details]
1. Everybody Here Wanted Something More

**DISCLAIMER: I am not the owner of either the characters or songs!**

* * *

Silena came to Camp Half-Blood when she was ten. She had never been to New York prior to that, being from a small town in South Carolina.

The first friend she made was an eleven year old boy named Charles Beckendorf whose sleeping bag was next to hers in the Hermes cabin. They were claimed on the same day, two weeks into her being there; she went to Aphrodite and he went to Hephaestus. Luke Castellan, the second friend she'd made there, had laughed at the irony of it, though, at the time, she didn't fully understand it.

And over the next two years, they kind of grew apart. They'd still hang out if their cabins intersected anywhere, but other than that, he stuck to the forges and she became friends with the girls around camp.

Something happened between her and Charlie around the time Percy Jackson showed up. They were instantly best friends again, connected at the hip as much as camp rules would let them be. Their elections to head counselor certainly helped, but after what had transpired around the time of her fourteenth birthday, she was afraid they would never be the same.

* * *

Silena left camp to visit her dad once a year. She wasn't a high-risk demigod, not really, but still stayed at camp year round. The one thing that was problematic with her was how often her appearance would change, a side effect of Aphrodite's parentage. On top of all that, Silena had been homeschooled all her life, so she and her father had decided for her to just stay at camp. However, he wanted to be closer to her nonetheless, and he moved to Greenwich Village, where he opened up the chocolate store he'd wanted to own for as long as she could remember. Her family wasn't religious, so it wasn't for Christmas or Chanukah or anything, but rather Silena's birthday was the week she and her dad spent together, just the two of them. The only downside was that her birthday was February 13, which meant that they were together for Valentine's Day, the one day out of the year that her father hated more than anything else in the world, because it was the day that he meant Aphrodite and, one year later, the day she broke his heart when she left.

She had volunteered to run to the store when her dad ran out of milk making her birthday cake. He didn't love that, but she took her sword, and her father had long ago learned not to mess with Silena and her sword. She would do just fine.

"Silena Beauregard, as I live and breathe."

Silena froze, because she knew that voice. Celestial bronze could be used on demigods, right? And how much trouble would she get in, really, if she killed a traitor?

"Silena, stop." The hand that had slowly been edging to her purse and her bag of enchanted make-up stopped of its own accord, and the fact that he was using magic pissed Silena off more than the fact that Luke was there. She may have been Aphrodite's daughter, and she might not turn fourteen until the next day, but there was still a lot of anger in her small stature. "I don't want to hurt you."

"Oh really?" Silena laughed bitterly, "Like you didn't want to hurt Percy?"

"That was necessary."

"For what? Annabeth cried for a week when she found out about all this!" She thought he saw his face contort into something like regret at that, but quickly his mask came back onto his face.

"I need your help, Silena."

"I don't want to give it."

"Silena," he said sweetly, running a hand across her cheek. She watched his hand out of the corner of her eye and tried to steady the loud thundering of her heart underneath her jacket. "I need your help."

She was silent for several minutes, Luke continuing to stare into her eyes, and her resolve crumbled, though she didn't know if it was because of magic or his beautiful blue eyes.

"What do you need?"

"A pair of eyes. On the inside. You'll be saving lives, Silena."

Saving lives. For which side?

"Saving lives? Everyone at Camp Half-Blood would be safe?"

"As safe as a demigod can be, of course."

She hesitated, and could feel him staring at her, begging for her to make a decision. She could keep everyone safe…

"I won't hurt Charles Beckendorf," he added.

Her eyes snapped to his.

"What does Charlie have to do with anything?"

"Silena," Luke laughed, "You care about him. I know that; everyone does."

"He's my friend; of course I care about him."

"And don't you want him to be safe?"

She glanced down to the sidewalk, faces circling through her mind. There was Charlie, and Annabeth, and Percy, and Katie, and the Stolls she still couldn't tell apart, and her brothers and sisters, and even Clarisse and the Ares cabin, and everyone else at Camp Half-Blood that she had grown close to in her three years there. She could save them.

When she returned to camp the next Monday, she had her new scythe necklace buried in her duffel bag, a new found interest in studying magic, and a sinking feeling in her stomach whenever she met Charlie's eye.


	2. Rumors Fly

**DISCLAIMER: I am not the owner of either the characters or songs!**

 **A/N: This one-shot is (very loosely) based on "Blank Space" and takes place directly after Chapter 1, with both of them taking place late in the winter between** _ **The Lightning Thief**_ **and** _ **The Sea of Monsters**_ **. After this, they will not be in chronological order, but rather the order that fits the album best.**

 **Also: I have exams next week and am challenging myself not to post/write any fanfictions after today until exams end, plus I have other things I need to work on after that, so this will not be updated again until** **December 30.**

* * *

Charles wasn't _stupid_ ; he knew the reputation of the Aphrodite cabin. It was a cruel tradition that Luke had told him about one night when he was ten, back in the Hermes cabin, when Martin Flint had entered it and looked like a kicked puppy. The Rite of Passage that all the cabin members were basically forced to do was branded on all of their heads. Every time a new kid entered that cabin, there'd be talk about who the victim would be. They all understood earning your godly parent's respect, if not love, and so they tried to avoid telling the non-Aphrodite new kids about it. Charles had only found out because he pestered Luke for almost half an hour straight when he caught sight of Martin's face.

And when Silena entered that cabin, back when she was eleven and he was twelve, a lot of people seemed to think it would be him.

So he'd done his best to stay away, which was easy for her first two years, because their cabins didn't overlap a ton. He still considered himself her friend and they always got on really well, but Charles, despite his enormous size, was really just a big teddy bear. If she somehow managed to snake her way in and break his heart, he would be finished.

But that didn't stop him from having a huge crush on her.

* * *

Silena returned from camp after her birthday with a newfound determination that drew him to her even more. It was a sight to see, Silena Beauregard, barely five feet tall, walking around camp with an aura that made her appear taller than the gods.

Considering they'd both been elected to head counselor at the end of the previous summer, they were able to spend a lot more time together at the weekly counselor meetings on Sunday nights after dinner, when schedules for the upcoming week were made. For these meetings, despite being during the campfire, there was always an abundance of soda, chips, and dip that refilled themselves, thanks to the technology that Camp Half-Blood had, a necessity considering how long some of them wound up being.

That particular Sunday night, they were all gathered around the ping-pong table in the rec room, watching a verbal sparring match between Travis Stoll and Katie Gardner, who, despite being thirteen, had been the Demeter cabin's counselor for almost three years. Travis and Connor had pulled some elaborate prank on the cabin that Katie looked about ready to kill them, Travis especially, for, but a warning look from Lee Fletcher, the oldest of all of them at seventeen, made her shut up so they could get on with the meeting.

"Alright. So the Hermes cabin is homeschooling from nine to eleven this week, right?" Charles asked, glancing down at the schedule in front of them.

"Castor and I will be there, too," Pollux chirped, "If that's alright."

"Fine by us. Can somebody add that in on Monday and Tuesday? Thanks, Lee. Who'll be supervising?" Connor answered, penciling in the addition onto the half of the schedule he could reach.

"Well, not Silena, since Aphrodite doesn't wake up until almost noon," Clarisse muttered, and several people laughed, but Charles was _fuming._

"What did you just say?"

"It's fine, Beckendorf, just cool it," Silena hissed, but Charles pretended not to hear her so he couldn't get in trouble with her later.

"What did you just say?" he repeated.

"Charles," she hissed again, reaching all the way across the table to grab his arm and getting in the way of Connor's writing. "It's not worth it."

"Listen to your girlfriend," Connor said warningly, "You may be strong and older than Clarisse, but she'll still take you in a fight."

"We're not dating," he and Silena said in two-part harmony, but things started to add up. Was that why Jake was always giving him these knowing smirks in the forge? Why Nyssa kept pestering him for what felt like hours after he'd spent maybe two minutes talking with Silena?

"Shit," he heard Connor mutter under his breath before he returned his attention to Charles and Silena. "Oh. Well, that's just what I've heard around camp."

"Who told you that?" Silena asked skeptically.

"Katie told me and Connor while we were in the school store."

"You eavesdropped," Katie deadpanned.

"Regardless, we still got the information. Where'd you get it from?" Travis asked.

"That's what Miranda had said that Nyssa said."

"I've said nothing about this to Nyssa," Charles told Silena, and she nodded.

"Oh, I told Nyssa," Lee replied.

"Who told you?"

"Drew."

"Drew," Silena sighed, "Spreading gossip. Again."

"Yeah, but it seemed so true," Lee said, eyeing the two of them.

"We're not dating. Aphrodite kids don't get dates, remember? Ever," she sighed, running a hand through the chocolate colored hair on her head.

"Of course they do. Even with the Rite of Passage, you always get a date," Katie said earnestly, looking directly at Silena next to her.

"I don't want to talk about this," she said, and then, with a pointed look at Clarisse, she continued, "I'll supervise the Hermes and Dionysus homeschooling this week, which means Aphrodite will have free time from 9-11 with Drew overseeing."

And that was the end of that.

* * *

The Hephaestus cabin, due to having only six kids, took the ten to noon homeschooling spot that Clarisse oversaw, which meant they shared the room with Silena and the Hermes and Dionysus cabins for an hour. Silena stopped by his desk almost as soon as he sat down at it, since no one really cared about who was supervising who during shared hours.

"Charlie, I'm-"

"Don't apologize. Really. There's nothing you could've done to impact it."

"I didn't know that the rumors would spring up."

"Well, when you're distant from each other for two years and then joined at the hip again, it tends to start them," he replied.

"You don't mean that, right?"

"Of course I mean it, Lena, since that's what happened." She didn't say anything for a minute, and he was worried she was going to leave. "Silena?"

"This whole Rite of Passage thing… I don't know if I'll be able to do it, when the time comes. Do you think me being head will earn me enough credit with her?"

"I don't know. But there's only one way to find out."

"Charlie," she said nervously, "If I had a secret, I could tell you, right?"

"Of course," he promised, squeezing her hand. "You can always tell me."

"Good. I don't think I'm ready to, not yet, but I will be. Eventually."

"Good," he echoed, and she stood up as Jake called her over to proofread the paper that Chiron was making them write. "Hey, Silena?"

"Yeah?"

"We could use you on our Capture the Flag team this Friday."

"I'll think about it."

How was it possible that his crush on this girl had just grown?


	3. Midnight

**DISCLAIMER: I am not the owner of either the characters or songs!**

 **A/N: This is set in between** _ **Sea of Monsters**_ **and** _ **Titan's Curse**_

* * *

She didn't know how the others were doing it, but she couldn't stand the loud clang of metal on metal anymore, and was done with waiting for the harpies to deal with in on their own. The forge was far enough away from the cabins that, in theory, this wouldn't happen, but every rule has an exception.

Besides, whoever was in there was supposed to be asleep, and, as a head counselor, she would have to report them to Chiron and Jake, which she was sure they would not appreciate, even if Jake was pretty lax on the whole Head Counselor thing.

She snuck across camp and somehow avoided any harpies- though, considering the prolonged racket the Hephaestus kid was making, it didn't seem like any harpies were out tonight, so she guessed they were doing recon for camp- and, when she yanked open the door, she stopped dead.

Because there, with soot all over his body and a huge hammer in his hand, was Charles Beckendorf, his Camp Half-Blood t-shirt soaked with sweat.

Someone who she hadn't heard from in almost three months.

"Charlie!" she screamed, and he glanced up, staring at her in shock. "Where the hell have you been?!"  
"What are you doing here?" he replied, running over to the door and closing it slowly.

"I could hear you all the way from my cabin; it's a miracle the harpies haven't killed you yet, though I don't think they're around. What are you doing here? I haven't seen you since the end of summer, when you went to go see your mom. Where have you been for _three months_ , Charlie?"

"With my mom while she died!" he screamed, and Silena stood, frozen. Charlie had been incredibly secretive as to why he was leaving Camp Half-Blood so suddenly, especially since he never left. He'd told her a long time ago that he and his mom weren't overly close. Not as estranged as Luke, but still not very close.

"What?"

"My mom got cancer and things took a turn for the worst in August, so her boyfriend asked if I wanted to come be with her. She died last week."

"Charlie," she breathed, reaching out to take his hand, "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I didn't want to see the pity on your face," he replied bitterly, yanking his hand out of hers. "You don't know what it's like to lose someone, Silena. She was the only family I had left."

"Your dad-"

"Don't even try that," Charlie retorted, "It's not the same. I don't resent him, but it's still not the same." He paused, swallowing. "I never wanted to leave here once I came, not even for a weekend. I didn't want to leave my friends here to see her. I should've gone to see her."

"You can't go back in time, Charlie," she said immediately.

"But you can still want to."

She stepped closer to him and slowly pried the heavy hammer out of the hand she hadn't grabbed and set it down on the table, delicately. His eyes were locked on her every move and she couldn't help the shiver that ran down her spine.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm taking you back to your cabin. C'mon."

They walked back to the cabins side by side, no words needed to fill the space between them, but Silena has never been good with silence, so she rambled about what he had missed- more of the unclaimed in the Hermes cabin had joined Luke, Drew officially was announced to have charmspeak and Silena hated it. By the time they got to his cabin, she could've sworn he was smiling again.

"Shit," she said as she realized she'd forgotten her keys, as the head counselor was supposed to lock their cabin door each night- something only she, Charlie, Clarisse, and Annabeth ever actually remembered to do-, but Charlie simply pushed the door open and picked up the rock he'd been using to keep it open.

"I probably shouldn't have done that, considering I lost track of time. What time is it, anyway?"

"After midnight, I think," she replied, standing at the base of the steps, which, due to Charlie being almost six feet tall and several steps above her, made her feel even shorter than usual. She was thankful for the fact that Camp Half-Blood controlled its own weather, too, or else she would've been freezing in just her nightgown and the silk bathrobe her aunt had gotten her for her birthday.

"I'm sorry I didn't write to you," he said, his hand on the doorknob, but he was making no effort to go inside.

"I understand why you didn't. I just- I was really worried about you. I thought you might've been joining Luke or something," she added on nervously. She had been worried about that, for a couple days, but she'd threatened Luke that she'd stop spying for him if he didn't tell her all he knew about Charlie's whereabouts.

But as the days dragged on without word from her best friend, she had started to worry that he'd been lying about knowing nothing.

"Silena," he said, placing the rock in place before going down the stairs so they stood face-to-face once again, "Why would I ever do that? Everyone would hate me. _You'd_ hate me. I don't want to live in a world where you hate me, Silena Beauregard."

"Me neither."

His hands reached out to cup her face and he leaned down. She closed her eyes, expecting to feel a brush of lips against hers, but it never came. She opened her eyes again and his hands dropped down quickly before he coughed nervously.

"I should-"

"Yeah," she mumbled, stepping back. "Charlie?" she called to his retreating figure. He paused on the top step and turned around to look at her. "I should really report you."

"And I should report you," he retorted cheekily, a teasing smile on his lips. "Good night, Beauregard."

"Good night, Beckendorf!" she called over her shoulder as she raced across the grass and opened the door to her cabin, which she had also left open with a rock.

"Silena?" Mitchell whispered, since his bunk was right by the door and the moon had glared right into his eyes the second it opened.

"If you don't say a word, you can have the big mirror first for a month," she replied, tiptoeing over the one loose floorboard and making her way over to her bunk, carefully climbing the ladder and attempting to not wake Annalise.

"I didn't see a thing," he answered sleepily before rolling back onto his side. She reached her bunk and took a deep breath, glancing over at the picture Lee had taken of her and Charlie at the counselors-only post-fireworks party. Travis and Connor had just performed a horrendous skit that had her cracking up, her face buried in Charlie's shoulder, while his arm hung loosely around her. Ever since the dating rumors from earlier that year, Lee, the Stolls, and Clarisse had teasingly started calling them, 'The Lovebirds,' which was written in Annabeth's impeccable handwriting in the upper righthand corner. She remembered the night so clearly: She and Michael had watched the fireworks together, but he had blown her off for Veronica before she had the chance to sneak him to the party. Charlie had made the whole night brighter.

And he did that because he was her best friend, nothing else.

Right?


	4. Like We Stood A Chance

**DISCLAIMER: I am not the owner of either the characters or songs!**

 **A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviews, favorites, and follows! They all make me so happy; you have no idea.**

 **This one is inspired by** _ **Out of the Woods**_ **and set directly before/during** _ **The Last Olympian**_ **… so I think you know where this one is heading.**

* * *

"So," he heard Silena say as she hopped up on the workbench behind him, setting down a plate from the dining hall, "Hypothetically, would we have cats or dogs?"

"Is neither an option?" he teased, dropping the breastplate he'd been fixing and turning around to stand in front of her, wrapping his arms around her waist. She laughed a little as she wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, a twinkling sound he loved hearing as much as he loved hearing her voice. The two had almost a good foot of height between them when they stood side by side- when Silena wasn't wearing heels, at least-, so with her on the workbench, their faces were actually in line for once and he was able to see her eyes sparkle with mirth from up close.

"Charlie," she groaned in mock annoyance, tangling her hands up into his hair, and he caved immediately.

"Probably dogs. I grew up with cats and hated them. How about you? What we would have for a pet, hypothetically?"

"A dog," she smiled, pressing a kiss to his lips. "And what would we name this hypothetical dog?"

"We'd find something," he replied, coming down to press kisses against her neck.

Once the two had started dating, the whole rule about boys and girls alone together in cabins had really bitten them in the butt, so they'd come up with a better solution: sneak around like nobody's business. While the alcoves between the cabins was a common place to find the two, the forges were a personal favorite.

"Silena?" a voice called from outside, and he jumped away from her instantly. Mitchell was standing in the doorway, watching them with an amused look.

"Yes?" Silena said in her most professional tone that always made Charles laugh, hopping down from the bench.

"Clarisse is looking for you."

"Thanks, Mitchell," she replied, putting her hand on Charles's cheek and standing up on her tiptoes to kiss him. "Make sure you eat. I love you."

"Love you, too," he replied, kissing her temple before she left. He glanced up, expecting Mitchell to still be there, but he had left, and Jake and Nyssa came waltzing in, laughing about some joke that Nyssa had just told.

"Beckendorf, did you have anything to eat?" Jake called, "You weren't at lunch."

"Silena brought me something," he said lazily, taking a bite of the grilled cheese that had been on the plate. "Now, since I've got you both, I need some help with the Greek fire bombs for the tour bus mission."

* * *

"Look, last week's tour bus attack was great," Annabeth said in her most rational voice, "So I think we should do more like that. But, instead of on land, take to the sea." Charles glanced around at everyone's faces to make sure he wasn't the only one that didn't understand her, and, luckily, he wasn't. "I mean we should take out the _Princess Andromeda."_

"That's not actually a bad idea," Percy commented, leaning forward. "I'll go for boat purposes. We can take Blackjack."

"I'll go for Hephaestus. Two men should be able to get it done, especially if we're trying to go incognito," Charles replied, glancing at Percy, who nodded at him. He tried to ignore Silena's worried glances at him.

"My dad lives near the dockyards in Jersey. I can ask him to find out about abandoned ships there that you can practice with," Katie supplied.

"Sounds like a solid plan. Chiron?" Clarisse asked, glancing at the centaur.

"Sounds good to me. Argus can take you there-"

"We should practice with Blackjack," Percy interrupted, "We'll have to wait for the ship to come, which I don't doubt it will, and Blackjack doesn't like other people riding him, so we should start getting him used to Beckendorf now."

"I can help with that," Silena, resident-pegasus whisperer, chimed in.

"And we can work on the strategy," Annabeth said, glancing between the two boys.

"It's a solid plan. Connor, why don't you and the unclaimed handle surveillance for this mission, and then we will discuss regular camp activities at tonight's counselor meeting. The War Council is adjourned," Chiron said, exiting the rec room. Everybody else trailed out behind him until it was just Silena and Charles in the room.

"I understand that this is war and everything," she sighed, walking around the table so they were face to face, "But I really don't want you to go."

"Hey," he replied, brushing the hair out of her face, "We both know that there's a chance one of us or both of us will not make it out of this. Everybody knows that. As the seconds tick down to the fateful day full out war begins, we all get one day closer to dying. And with me going to college unprotected…"

"We're not going to think like that. Not today," she interrupted. "Because, Mr. Beckendorf, I believe we _officially_ got together on August first of last year."

"I believe we did," he said with a smile, wrapping his arms around her waist. "Happy anniversary, Silena."

"Happy anniversary, Charlie." She stood up on her tiptoes to kiss him and he leaned into it, bending forward so she didn't have to reach up so high.

"Could you guys go be sappy and gooey and gross somewhere else?" he heard Clarisse call from the living room and he laughed quietly as Silena flipped her friend off.

* * *

"What're you working on?" Silena asked as she walked into the forge with a plate of food for him.

"Oh, nothing," he said quickly, trying to hide it, but Silena picked it up before he could do anything of real significance with it.

"Charlie," she breathed glancing at the intricate Celestial Bronze band, "Is this going to be what I think it is?"

"Yes," he replied sheepishly, glancing down at the floor. Was she going to think he was too forward, making her a ring when they'd only been dating for a year?

As the silence wore on, he risked looking up, only to see Silena slowly putting the ring onto her Camp Half-Blood necklace.

"Let's get married," she whispered as she did the clasp back up, "Let's get married and live in New York and have three kids and have dogs and just forget this stupid war ever happened."

"I love you," he said, and she ran up to him, pulling his face down to hers as they kissed. "You're serious?"

"I've never been more serious in my life," she replied, staring into his eyes intensely. "I'm going to keep you safe, Charlie; I promise."

"Isn't that my job?"

"To keep yourself safe? Yes, but you could use some help." He laughed and kissed her again, letting their foreheads rest against each other. "We'll tell everyone once you blow Kronos back into a million pieces. In fact," she said, fishing around in her jeans pocket before pulling out a piece of paper, "For good luck."

He took it from her and glanced down at it: It was a Polaroid he'd taken of her. After his mom died, her boyfriend adopted him mostly so he could get a driver's licence without having to go through the foster system first and the two got along great; Charles even went to visit him from time to time. He'd sent Charles his mom's old camera as a Christmas gift the previous year. Charles remembered all the fun he and Silena had had together with it, taking as many wild and crazy pictures as they could before they were caught with an electronic device, even if it was just a Polaroid camera.

"I'll come back, you know."

"You better," she replied, kissing his nose daintily. "C'mon; let's eat!" she called, picking the plate back up and skipping out of the forge, giving him no choice but to follow.

* * *

He glanced around the ship's deck. There wasn't a lot of time left, if they actually wanted to blow everyone up. But it was kind of hard to think with the acrid smell of the Laistrygonian giant wafting up into his nose.

Silena's face appeared in his mind, the Celestial Bronze ring on her camp necklace flashing in the sunlight. He knew what he had to do, but he didn't want to even think about doing it.

But he did. So, with Percy still watching him, he mouthed, _Go._

Percy shook his head and Charles wanted to go over there and shake him. He was doing this for Percy, and Silena, and Clarisse, and Annabeth, and Chris and Katie and the Stolls and Michael and Will and Jake and Nyssa and Shane and everyone else at Camp Half-Blood.

He raised his arm slowly. He heard the dracanae ask what he was doing, but instead he focused on repeatedly telling Silena that he loved her and hoped that she didn't join him in Elysium for a long time.

He closed his eyes…

 _I'm sorry, Silena._

...And pressed the button.


	5. It's Just Too Late

**DISCLAIMER: I am not the owner of either the characters or songs!**

 **A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviews, favorites, and follows! They all make me so happy; you have no idea.**

 **This one is inspired by** _ **All You Had To Do Was Stay**_ **and is set just before the summer of** _ **The Last Olympian.**_

* * *

There were plenty of nights where Silena would dream that she and Charlie were living in an alternate universe with no monsters out to get them and no war hanging over their heads, where they could simply be young and carefree and, most importantly, in love.

But, sadly, that was not to be.

"I don't want to do it anymore," she hissed into the scythe charm for what must've been the hundredth time since May alone as she sat alone in her cabin, the door dead bolted shut while she argued with him. "Please, find someone else."

"Nobody trusts me."

"Neither do I, and I didn't when you recruited me, either!"

"But you did it."

That didn't mean she had to like it.

"You said I'd be saving lives. After the Battle of the Labyrinth-"

"Is that what you call it over there?"

"That's not the point. The point is that I'm not going to do it anymore."

"I'll hurt him."

"You'll hurt all of them whether I'm spying for you or not. Does it really matter anymore?"

She took the bracelet and shoved it into the deepest corner of her bag. It always seemed to weigh it down, no matter how light she packed, and she wondered whether or not she could ask Charlie to burn it with Greek fire without him putting the pieces together about why she would have a scythe charm bracelet in the first place.

* * *

Life had been getting more and more hectic as the days progressed, and not just because she was preparing the cabin to welcome the eight campers that would arrive for the summer, amongst them Drew, which required a _lot_ of mental preparation.

Besides, Charlie had gone home to see his adoptive father and his new girlfriend and celebrate his eighteenth birthday, and, after Chiron caught her and Charlie making out in the infirmary, she didn't think it would be a good idea to ask if she could use the phone in his office so they could talk. He would be home any day now, so she wasn't overly concerned, nor was she a clingy girlfriend that needed to know where he was at all times.

She was just heading towards the volleyball courts with Clarisse and Chris when she saw a satyr dragging a huge, clearly unconscious figured down the hill. She ran forward, Clarisse shouting after her to see what she was doing before she and Chris followed her up Half-Blood Hill.

Silena had never screamed so loudly in her life.

"I was escorting him back to camp when we ran into a _lot_ of Kronos's about a mile back. I had to drag him here- he went unconscious maybe twenty minutes ago-"

By that point, Clarisse and Chris had caught up to her. Clarisse and Chris helped carry Charlie down while Silena trailed behind uselessly, trying to hold back a sob. That had to have been her fault. Charlie wasn't defenseless, and neither was the satyr- she thought his name was Felix-, which meant they must've been greatly outnumbered. The fact any monsters had even _gone_ up against Charlie who, after spending years in the forges, was incredibly buff. Percy had been known to say that Charlie made monsters cry. The only reason that Kronos would send an army of monsters after a random, incredibly buff demigod and a completely random satyr was if they were trying to get even with someone, to teach them a lesson.

It broke her heart more than seeing Charles Beckendorf so still.

She managed to make it to the deck of the Big House without a full-blown breakdown. Word had spread pretty quickly as to the fact that Charlie had come back in the state he was in, and soon Jake, Nyssa, and Will were all flying past her into the Big House. Clarisse came out of the house, some blood smeared on her arm which she hid as soon as she realized Silena had seen it.

"Sil?" she asked hesitantly. Clarisse was not a touchy-feely person, but she melted a little around Silena, Chris, and a few select others.

"Is he okay?"

"I don't know. He will be, though. Eventually."

"Eventually," Silena echoed, her hands still shaking as they clutched the column.

"Are you okay? Charlie's been hurt before. Maybe not this bad, but he's still been in worse situations."

"I know." She took a deep breath, trying to keep the tears in because this was _all her fault_ but no one would believe her if she said it.

* * *

"Did you get my present?"

"Oh, I got it alright," Silena retorted into the scythe bracelet that she'd had to fish out of her bag in a fit of shame, "Of all the people to mess with-"

"I knew what I was doing."

"I should've known. You're a sick, twisted-"

"Silena, Silena. You had a mighty big crush once upon a time."

"Once upon a time. You hurt the boy I-" She paused before saying, "This isn't over."

"So you want me to go after your dad next? How would that go?"

"You wouldn't," she said desperately. If he got to her father with an army of monsters, she would never see him again. Charlie had gotten lucky with his adoptive father, but her father had sworn off love after her mom, so the best she might get for a guardian would be her aunt.

"Wanna try?"

"Fine," she bit out, glancing down at the bracelet Charlie had given her for her birthday. How could she keep doing this? Not just to him, but to _all_ of them? How could she keep offering solutions in war councils and then telling the enemy bits and pieces of what she'd just helped plan? The Titans were still pissed off that she would only give them morsels of information, and there was no way that she'd ever give them more than that, and they'd proven that if she stopped, they would hurt those she cared about. There was nothing she could do other than watch her friends and family be cut down in front of her.

She cried herself to sleep that night.

* * *

"What the hell are you doing out here?!" she demanded as she passed by the forges and saw Charlie inside, looking like he was trying to fix a helmet.

"That's the same question I've been asking," Jake sighed. "Beckendorf, really. Listen to your girlfriend."

"I want to do this," he said, reaching to pick up the hammer.

"You'll tear your stitches. Again."

"When did he tear them the first time?"

"That's not important," she and Charlie said in unison, each of them giving each other little sly looks. Jake seemed to understand and cleared his throat loudly, making sure to say, "I didn't need to know that. How did you even- Never mind. Just get him out of here, please, before Will blames one of us and puts our heads- and his- on a platter." Silena nodded and grabbed Charlie's hand before leading him back to the Hephaestus cabin which, luckily for camp rules, Landon was in, sitting on his bunk.

"Pretend I'm not even here," he said as soon as he saw them walk in, to which Silena and Charlie quickly retorted, "We will."

She helped him climb up into his bunk and passed him his sketchbook and pencils in what she knew would be a vain attempt at keeping him sane. He took them and smiled at her, brushing the stray strand of hair out of her face. It had turned from a bright red to its natural chestnut brown in the past few days, but luckily her eyes had stayed her natural blue, which rarely happened when her hair changed. Charlie always said she was beautiful no matter how she looked, though he'd confessed he liked her natural appearance the most.

"Thank you for listening to me for once, you big stubborn brick," she teased, pressing a kiss to his cheek.

"Whatever," he laughed, taking her hand.

"Charlie?"

"Yeah?"

"I know that this isn't the best time, and I know that I can be really stubborn, too, and irritating and a little vain, but you've put up with me for over six years now so I must be worth it. And you've said it so many times and now… I love you, Charlie. I love you so much and I should've said it when you first said it to me. And I will _not_ be doing the Rite of Passage on you."

"I know you won't be. You would've done it as soon as I said 'I love you' if you were actually going to do it. But I knew you wouldn't the second we got together."

She leaned in to kiss him and as she pulled away he said, "Silena?"

"Yes?"

"I love you, too."


	6. The Fella Over There

**DISCLAIMER: I am not the owner of either the characters or songs!**

 **A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviews, favorites, and follows! They all make me so happy; you have no idea.**

 **Also, thank you all for being so patient! I had hoped to have this story completely written and maybe the first ten chapters posted by the end of January, but I had pneumonia and was hospitalized for a week in the time since I last updated, and I had a ton of school make-up work, plus I got writer's block in the middle of writing this chapter, but I'm back, and that's what counts! I don't know when this will next be updated, but hopefully before the end of February!**

 **This chapter takes place after The Sea of Monsters (Or quite possibly in between... it's Independence Day of that summer, basically) and is inspired (Ish) by Shake It Off.**

* * *

After the fireworks, the counselors always have a little dance- well, that's probably not the most accurate word, but that's what they call it- that Chiron, Mr. D, and most importantly the harpies pretend doesn't happen.

They all meet up in the dining pavilion. Cabin 7 always supplies the music and the older counselors will sneak in dates. The fireworks earn their romantic connotation in part because of the party. According to the previous Hephaestus head, couples ended and begun at these secret soirées.

And, according to his cabin, tonight would start the path that would end with Aphrodite's Rite of Passage and him with a broken heart.

Needless to say, he was not exactly looking forward to tonight.

Nyssa and Maya had forced him to 'look nice,' because the after-party was a secret Charles would never be able to keep. Jake made a big joke about kissing as Charles left the cabin that night and, as he walked to the dining pavilion, he asked himself the question: Did Silena _really_ feel that way about him? She didn't seem to, though anything could be possible, right? They were _demigods_ , for the gods' sake.

There was just simply no way Silena Juliet Beauregard had a crush on him.

Lee was just setting up the music when Charles arrived. Annabeth and Percy were sitting together at one of the tables, speaking together, but other then that, no one else was there.

"Just us tonight?" he joked to Percy and Annabeth as he sat down to join them. He had a bad feeling Silena would berate him later for simply jumping into their conversation unannounced, but what was he supposed to do, since Lee was too busy fighting with a record player and cursing everytime the needle made a sound like nails on a chalkboard.

"Please. The Stolls will be here for sure, they would never miss it, and I know for sure that Clarisse is coming because she challenged Percy to a dance battle."

"Yes. Because that needed to be broadcasted," Percy deadpanned to her, shoving her arm playfully. Annabeth shoved his back and the two laughed together, making Charles wonder if he _should_ , in fact, contribute to the Hermes-Aphrodite joint betting pool as to when they would get together. Considering they were both just shy of fourteen (Annabeth's birthday was in like a week; was her present finished?), he'd say about two years.

"How good of a dancer is he?" Charles asked Annabeth, who shrugged. "Well Clarisse's mom made her take ballet from the time she was about, oh, two, up until she was claimed, so good luck, Jackson."

"Shut up, Beckendorf," Percy muttered.

"What is he going on about now?" he heard Silena tease, and he turned around to see her walking towards them. She'd exchanged her white pants from earlier with a black skirt that stopped in the middle of her thighs and her designer sneakers had been exchanged for shoes he knew were called sandal wedges. She was still wearing her Camp Half-Blood shirt; how well she was able to pull off the violent shade of orange that the shirt was, no matter what appearance her powers decided she would sport at that point in time, was something that never stopped amazing him. Currently, she was a blonde with striking green eyes, though she was always beautiful to him.

Yeah, he definitely had a crush on her.

"Clarisse and Percy will be treating us to their dance stylings this evening," Charles replied with a grin, and she burst out laughing.

"Are you aware of Clarisse's dance background?"

"Have you met Clarisse? I didn't get much choice in the matter," Percy snorted.

"You talking smack about me, Jackson?" Clarisse demanded as she and Katie arrived, Castor and Pollux not far behind.

"I would never."

"Wouldn't you?" Annabeth laughed. Percy reached into the bowl next to them and threw a pretzel at her head. She retaliated by sticking her finger into the salsa and wiping it in a straight line from his forehead to the tip of his nose.

"FOOD FIGHT!" Connor and Travis, who had appeared out of nowhere, yelled at the top of their lungs, smashing a pie into Katie's face. The dining pavilion interrupted into absolute chaos, the eleven demigods all choosing a weapon of choice- Charles had happened to be closest to the corn chips, though Annabeth had gotten her hands on not only the salsa and guac, but also all the plates on the Cabin 3 table, which allowed her to basically conjure up anything she wanted, so he was stuck with uselessly pelting them at Silena,, who shrieked every time one was anywhere in her vicinity.

He glanced down at himself, and was not at all surprised to find his Camp Half-Blood t-shirt covered in tomato sauce, guac, mustard, whipped cream, and chocolate. While he studied the huge yellow stain on his shorts, something hit him in the head and a cherry fell from his head. Looking back up, he saw Silena standing over him, an ice cream cone in her hand that he quickly realized was responsible for the freezing cold liquid rushing down his back and face. How they had managed to conjure up some of this, stuff he wasn't sure, but he was really pissed that he hadn't grabbed any plates. There was only so far that corn chips could get him.

"That's for testing out the new Greek fire stuff on my good sneakers," she whispered in his ear before her tongue darted out to lick some of the ice cream off of the skin right next to his ear. She stood up and walked away as Lee shouted for a full-cabin truce, before he returned to the record player and it began to play an old Rolling Stones song he recognized from his mom. He didn't know where the hell Lee had found the record, as Charles severely doubted that Chiron listen to the Rolling Stones, but Silena was singing along in her perfect tonedeaf way and was doing the most adorably awkward dance moves he'd ever seen. He couldn't stop staring.

She turned back to look at him when the song was over and winked, holding her hand out for him to hold as Lee took the record off and placed the next one on. Lazily, she began leading him, causing him to gently remind her that there was no music.

"So?" she laughed, resting her head against his chest. "Your hair looks great, by the way."

"I'm trying a new style. I'm going to call it 'Sundae.' Do you approve?"

"Very much so."


	7. 2 AM

**DISCLAIMER: I am not the owner of either the characters or songs!**

 **A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviews, favorites, and follows! They all make me so happy; you have no idea.**

* * *

Silena turned around when she heard Charlie curse and saw the top of his head as he climbed up the ladder to the roof of the Aphrodite Cabin.

"What are you doing?"

"Trying not to die on this deathtrap you call a ladder," he groaned, heaving himself up. "Good gods, that's not _safe_."

"You're the authority on cabin repairs, are you not?"

"Still," he sighed as he plopped down next to her, "You need to report that kind of stuff, Head Counselor."

"Well normally we don't have people like you climbing the ladder. Mark is buff, for a fourteen year old, but still not seventeen year old Hephaestus-level buff."

Charlie nodded as he glanced up at the sky, where Ursa Minor was clearly visible from their perch on the roof of the Aphrodite cabin. She pulled her legs up closer to her chest and stared down at the ground, reaching out for the hilt of her sword for comfort.

"You gonna tell me why you're sitting on the roof of your cabin at 2 AM?" he asked.

"How did you find me?" she said by way of answer.

"Nyssa and I were the last two in the forge, repairing armor and weapons and everything, and she said that she was leaving about half an hour before curfew. And whenever she returns from the forge, she always crashes immediately, and everyone else was already asleep in the cabin, so there was no one to remind me that I need to sleep. So I lost track of time, and when I realized what time it was I shut it down almost and immediately and then when I came out I thought I saw a lone figure sitting on the roof of the Aphrodite cabin. How lucky I am to be right." She rolled her eyes and leaned her head on his shoulder, drawing the bear outline around the stars in her mind to avoid conversation. "Now are you going to tell me what you're doing up here? You really want the harpies to find you?"

"Relax; we're upwind from the Big House and you're the idiot still wearing their beacon- sorry, camp t-shirt. They've never noticed me before."

"How often do you do this?"

"After every battle or monster fight I've ever been in. Once I'm safe, I find the nearest roof or balcony or treehouse or whatever, as long as it's up high and safe and I can see the stars and I have a weapon of some sort near by, even if it's just a stupid kitchen knife that wouldn't do me any good if faced with a real monster. And I tell myself all the myths that go along with them, or fun facts about the animal or the Zodiac sign or anecdotes about Percy or Pollux and-"

She stopped, choking on tears. It had only been a day since Castor's death, and she couldn't say his name, not yet. Five people was too many people dying, in her opinion, and she wasn't ready to admit that sweet, eleven year old Teddy, who could hardly hold a sword, had died in the battle.

"Hey," Charlie sighed, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her closer to him then she already was. "What's wrong?"

"What's wrong? Our friends _died_ , Charles, our siblings, our family, all because of some stupid quest for revenge!"

She wished she was wearing her scythe bracelet and that Luke had been on the receiving end of those words, but he wasn't, so instead of immense power, it was immense guilt as she took in Charlie's face.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't be taking this out on you-"

"Silena, don't be. You're absolutely right. Everybody lost someone yesterday. Castor, Lee, Teddy, Logan-"

"I totally forgot about her," Silena said in a rush, "Is Nyssa okay?"

"She's more than a little bummed to lose the only half-sister she's ever met, but she'll be okay. We'll all be okay, Silena."

"We're in the middle of a war zone, Charlie. We're not all going to be okay."

He was silent, which she took as him conceding that she had a point. She may not have been a daughter of Athena, but she wasn't the airhead that most Aphrodite children seemed to be stereotyped as.

"I won't deny that we're in a war zone," he said, "But we need all the hope we can possibly find. We all need something to fight for, something to remind us that we can do this. Maybe it's Teddy. Maybe it's your dad, or your cabin, or me. But we can't just give up, Silena. That's the last thing we should even be thinking about doing."

"Who said anything about giving up?" He gave her a look that made it clear that she had, but she ignored him. "Who are you fighting for?"

"My mom. My dads, biological and adoptive. My brothers and sister. My friends. You."

"I'm not one of your friends?" she teased.

"You're more than that, Silena," he said quietly, "And you know that."

"I'm your best friend."

"Exactly."

It was too dark for her to properly see his face, so she hoped he couldn't see the disappointment on hers when he said she was simply his best friend. Of course, she'd walked right into it, but that didn't help.

"What about you, Silena? Who are you going to fight for?"

"For everyone I care about."

She didn't know what overtook her, but she felt the overwhelming need to kiss him. She'd like to blame her mother for it, though she knew that it wasn't just a side effect of being the daughter of the goddess of love.

But she didn't. Charlie was her best friend, and even if she'd been harboring a crush on him for a while, she wasn't going to mess this up. Yes, he'd almost kissed her last fall, but he had been sleep deprived and she knew he hadn't meant it.

"Am I on that list?" he teased.

"The very top."

"I should hope so."

Maybe she wasn't going to kiss him tonight.

But she _would_ ask him to the fireworks and see what happened.


	8. Salt In The Wound

**DISCLAIMER: I am not the owner of either the characters or songs!**

 **A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviews, favorites, and follows! They all make me so happy; you have no idea.**

* * *

"Who's trying today?"

"We've all tried, Nyssa. It's not worth it. He's not coming down."

"Hear that, Charles? Jake's given up on you!"

Charles reached behind his head and pulled out the pillow before tossing it down towards the ground, not bothering to actually try and find Jake in the process. Then, he reached his hand back and pressed a button. AC/DC began to blare from the headboard stereo system he had just finished setting up the week before.

"Turn that shit off, Beckendorf!" Oliver snapped from his bunk, though the sound was somewhat smothered due to the fact that he was speaking directly into his pillow.

"No," Charles replied, simply to be difficult. Someone groaned dramatically, and then Landon's face appeared over the rail of his bunk.

"Jake told me to tell you that I'm doing this for your own good," Landon promised before taking a hammer and slamming into the stereo. Charles barely had time to move his head before the metal collided with the system, and he looked down at Jake in shock.

"Jake!" Landon, he noticed, was scrambling down the ladder and practically running over to his own bunk. Charles was rather proud of himself for that.

"For your own good."

"How is it 'for my own good?' How is giving me the stress of putting this back together in anyway good?"

"Because then you'll have something to do besides mope around about seeing your not-girlfriend kiss someone else!" Nyssa said cheerfully.

"Have you even talked to her about it, or have you just been avoiding her like the plague?" Shane asked.

"The latter, because he's an idiot."

"Thank you for the vote of confidence, Nyssa. Means a lot."

"I try. Now," she said, climbing up the ladder and tapping his nose with her pointer finger, "Come down to the world of the living, shower, brush your teeth, _and then go talk to Silena._ "

He looked at his half-sister, the only one he had left, and he sighed. There was no avoiding Silena any longer. It was time.

After Nyssa had made him acceptable, he went looking for her. When he found her making out with Pollux underneath Thalia's Pine, he stopped.

* * *

He literally ran into Silena during cabin inspection, which he'd tried, without success, to pass off to newly-minted head Michael in an effort to avoid both Silena and Pollux, but clearly his immortal stepmother was playing one of her games, like Silena had lamented to him about years ago.

"Beckendorf," she said curtly, "I haven't seen you in a few days."

"Yeah, I've been busy," he replied, "Working in the forges."

"Yeah," she agreed. "Well, I think you'll find everything's up to snuff, like usual."

"Yeah, seems so."

"Oh my GODS!" Drew shouted, looking up from the manicure she was giving to Annalise. She stood up and pulled them both over to the bathroom. She opened her mouth, but Silena quickly said, "If you charmspeak either one of us, I will not hesitate to throw out your Prada handbag your daddy sent you."

Charles tried his best to smother a laugh, but it didn't work. Silena and Drew, despite all of their differences, sent him identical death glares, which only made him laugh harder.

"Don't you have an inspection to finish?" Silena snapped, spinning in a perfect pivot and walking back towards her bunk.

"She really likes you, you know," Drew told him.

"No, no she doesn't. Not in that way." Drew rolled her eyes, but still went out to the main area of the cabin.

* * *

The head counselor meeting was that night, which meant there was _definitely_ no way he could avoid Silena and Pollux.

Meetings had sort of a different feel now. In addition to their regular head meeting responsibilities, talks about battle strategy and weapons became more and more common. Offensive ideas were brainstormed and slowly refined for the next convening of the War Council, or thrown out completely. Clarisse had added more compulsory training to the schedule, which had made Silena start to require pegasus training, and he'd insisted that if they were doing that, he wanted people from one cabin each week to help in the forge if they had down time and nothing pressing to attend to.

He'd never hated the seating arrangement like he did today. He had sometimes wished that Silena sat next to him instead of across, but now, he wanted more distance between them, and he irrationally hated the fact that Castor had died, making Pollux's chair next to Silena's instead of his brother's.

"Beckendorf," Travis said, shoving his arm a little, "Pollux wants to know if he can join Percy and Demeter in forge duty this week."

Charles snapped his eyes up from his lap to look at Pollux. Pollux shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"I think Percy and the Demeter Cabin is more than enough."

"It's ten people," Connor said, "And since you've already volunteered half of your cabin for surveillance this week-"

"It's fine, Connor."

"Charles," Silena said stiffly, "Don't judge him because you're pissed at me."

"What did you do?" Clarisse asked, eyebrows raised.

" _I_ did nothing. Beckendorf caused all the problems."

A hush settled over the table at that, since Silena only called him Beckendorf when one of them was _really_ angry. Pollux was fidgeting again, and Clarisse was giving him _her_ death glare, which was almost as, if not more, terrifying than Silena's.

"Alright. Let's just move on," Annabeth said slowly. "Percy?"

"Oh, um," he said, standing so he could get a better view of the schedule, "I'll help with pegasus lessons tomorrow?"

The meeting continued despite the large elephant in the room, and everyone carefully tried to avoid any conversation landmines. When it finally ended an hour and a half later, everyone cleared out quickly. Charles grabbed Silena's hand before she could leave and spun her around to face him.

"Pollux?"

"Why do you care?"

"I care about you, obviously!" Charles retorted, laughing like a madman. Silena ripped her arm from his grasp, fire dancing in her eyes.

"You made it _very_ clear at the fireworks how you feel about me, Charles Beckendorf, and I did _not_ feel cared for."

"I had to help Jake and Nyssa!"

"That's not what I'm talking about!"

"Then what did I do that's made you get together with _Pollux_ , of all people!"

"Whatever I have with Pollux doesn't concern you!"

"Just tell me!"

"Fine! I tried to tell you that some of the fireworks had been tampered with by Connor and a gaggle of Hermes boys, and that I knew exactly what had been done and could try to help you fix it, but you told me I was just an Aphrodite girl and wouldn't know that. So I stormed off, as you'll recall, and found Pollux, who looked miserable. One thing lead to another and-"

"Silena, you didn't."

"It was my choice! We're together now; you missed the bus. Maybe you'll catch the next one."

He slammed his lips to hers furiously, pulling her close against him. She jumped back in surprise, her fingertips brushing her bottom lip. Her eyes were still blazing, and he thought she must have been the reason that people told their significant other that they were beautiful when they were mad.

"Don't do that to me again. Not while I'm with him."

He watched her leave, and once he heard the door to the Big House bang shut, he slammed his hand onto the ping pong table.

Two weeks later, Silena and Pollux had broken up.

* * *

He looked at himself in the mirror one last time and nodded. He grabbed the bag from the sink counter and strode straight to the dining pavilion, where he could see her currently black hair flipping around wildly in the breeze that was sweeping through camp.

"August first," he told her, passing over about twenty drachmas, making sure that everyone was paying attention.

"What?" she laughed, holding the bag in confusion, "What is this?"

"I would like to bet twenty drachmas in the 'When-Will Beckendorf-and-Silena-Get-Together?' betting pool and I would like to bet that they will get together on August first."

"But that's today," she said slowly. "Oh my gods," she added, glancing up at him.

"I'm so sorry, for everything."

"I know you are," she said, looking back down at the bag before returning her gaze to him, an impish smile on her lips. She climbed up onto the table, nearly stepping in Mitchell's mashed potatoes, and launched herself into his arms. He caught her, somehow, spinning her around before kissing her.

Clarisse appeared at his shoulder then, surrounded by other campers who took Silena out of his arms and then hoisted him up overhead. Silena was shrieking, and this only increased when they launched her into the lake. Charles at least knew what to expect, and he was soon tossed in right after her.

When he came up for air, Silena was swimming towards him, grinning. He laughed and pulled her back against him, kissing her again.

"So," he said, kissing her forehead, "Will you be my girlfriend?"

"Duh," she laughed, kissing his forehead, "But don't ever again imply I'm dumb."

"Never again."

She kissed him again, and when the wolf whistles started, he just ignored them.


	9. Let's Get Out Of This Town

**DISCLAIMER: I am not the owner of either the characters or songs!**

 **A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviews, favorites, and follows! They all make me so happy; you have no idea!**

* * *

"I think it's a good idea!"

"No," Mr. D repeated, rubbing his temples. Silena was trying to hide her snicker from across the table, but Charlie clearly noticed, since he turned and glared at her.

"If Annabeth was here-"

"If any of the Athena cabin was here, they would have already shot down this idea without you summoning us to a counselor meeting and wasting our time," Mr. D retorted. "But they all love their precious learning too much, apparently, to stay during the school year. Even Annabelle."

"Nyssa's entire family has experience working with cars, and we always fix the vans if something happens, and even then we still check them routinely and change the oil and everything."

"Look, I know I agreed to bring them in, but why do you even need a car?" Katie asked Beckendorf. "The store has basically everything you could possibly need."

"Sometimes we need parts and Argus can't take us because he's delivering strawberries or something," Charlie said. "And none of us are licenced to drive a van."

"You need to be licenced to drive a van?" Clarisse asked, and Charles nodded.

"So we should have a car here."

"It'd be good for dates, too," Lee said thoughtfully, and everyone stared at him.

"I'm a daughter of the love goddess, and even _I_ think you just blew it for us," Silena told him, and he shrugged.

"None of you guys have needed Argus drive you into the city for a date, have you?" Lee asked, shaking his head. "It's awful. It's so, so awful."

To Silena's amazement, Argus nodded in agreement. She raised an eyebrow and saw Castor beside her do the same. Charlie, meanwhile, looked like he'd just won the lottery and turned his attention back to Mr. D and Chiron.

"So, we can get a car?"

Chiron gave a sigh that sounded like one of resignation, then looked down the table at Argus, who said everything he wanted to with his eyes, and then Chiron turned to Mr. D next to him.

"They make some good points," Chiron said with a slight shrug.

"Well, I _did_ run this by Annabeth last week," Charles said with a grin, and Silena rolled her eyes. "She thinks it's a good idea, in case you couldn't tell."

Mr. D groaned.

"Fine! You can get a car. And since it was Bracken's idea, he can pick the damn thing out."

"Yes!" Charles said, throwing his hands up in the air.

* * *

"What're you doing here?" Charlie asked, stopping in front of his cabin door when he found Silena sitting in front of it. She looked up at him, grinning, and jumped to her feet.

"I came to help you pick out the car."

"Why?"

"Because if this is the car that Camp Half-Blood is going to be stuck with, it needs to be functional _and_ look nice. That's where I come in."

"Is it now? And why are you out here alone, exactly?"

"Landon was the only one in there, but he said I shouldn't have to wait too long for you, and since Lee was making the rounds on inspection, I figured it was best if I just stayed outside."

"Smart. Come on in," he said, leading her into the cabin. Landon was sprawled out on the floor, frowning at a set of blueprints. "You okay, Lando?"

"Yeah, just looking at this," Landon replied. "You two do whatever it is you do," he continued with a dismissive wave of his hand. She shared a look with Charlie before Landon looked up at them in alarm. "It's nothing romantic, is it?"

"No!" she and Charlie said at the same time, and she could already feel the heat rising to her cheeks.

"Okay. Just double checking." He returned his attention to the blueprints and Charlie turned her, smiling, before looking back at Landon.

"No one else is here, right?"

"Nope, just us, but they'll probably be coming back soon to clean up before dinner," he said, and Charles nodded and started climbing up to his bunk.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"We're going to the private room. C'mon."

"Should I be allowing this?" Landon called up to him, and she saw Charlie roll his eyes before replying, "Yes. If you're quiet enough and we're loud enough, you might be able to hear the entire conversation."

"Good to know," Silena laughed, and she followed Charlie up to his bunk and waited for him to do… whatever it is he was going to do. He pressed a button and his and Jake's bunk flew backwards.

"By the gods!" she shouted, and Charles laughed as the bunk opened up into the secret room.

"Welcome, to the best kept secret of the Hephaestus cabin," he announced as he started climbing down. "Everyone knows it exists, but only the counselor and second-in-command know how exactly to access it, and I'm technically the only one allowed in it. And Chiron stresses that I'm supposed to apply normal cabin rules here, but what he doesn't know won't hurt him."

"I thought your best kept secret was your second floor," she replied. She waited until he was on the ground and heading towards a lounge area before she climbed down from the bunk herself.

"Okay, second best kept secret. We've got a lot in Cabin 9."

"We can't have secrets in Cabin 10. The truth always comes out, one way or another." She thought about the scythe charm bracelet hidden inside a compact in her makeup bag, the one place she could guarantee none of her siblings would go in without express permission from her, since she'd instituted that pad and tampon boxes were a free-for-all and had almost gotten found out last week.

She wasn't sure anymore if getting caught was the worst thing or the best thing that could happen to her.

"Maybe it's just a side effect of having only three girls in the entire cabin, two of whom are at school right now."

"That's sexist," Silena retorted sharply, "But probably true. So. What have we narrowed the car options down to?"

"You get right down to business, don't you?"

"'Course. Dinner's in less than half an hour."

"Should've known you would betray me for food." She grinned up at him and plopped down onto the couch, giving him no choice but to follow. He picked up a notebook off of the coffee table and flipped it to a page covered in his impeccably neat handwriting. "Chiron's been letting me use his computer, and this is what I've got so far."

* * *

"Milady," Charlie said, offering her his hand. She looked up at him, arching a painstakingly-perfected eyebrow at him. He held both of his hands up in defeat and let her step out of the car by herself. "You don't like chivalry, then, huh?"

"Don't tell Mother," she said with a wink. "So how come Chiron and Mr. D are letting us get first dibs on the car?"

They'd picked a rather nice looking, in her own professional opinion, a only slightly used silver 2006 Toyota Highlander, since Chiron had insisted on an SUV. It could fit at least seven of them legally, eight less legally if there was a very tiny person in the third row that didn't mind being flattened down if the police showed up. She'd made Chiron and Charlie take her when they went to pick it out and both she and Charlie were thoroughly convinced her mere presence had gotten the price down, which had pleased Mr. D immensely.

"Because we picked it, of course," Charlie replied. "And we get to enjoy an evening of dinner and a show, entirely on Mr. D. It'll be fantastic."

Silena laughed and let him lead her into the restaurant, though.

Dinner was amazing, and the show just as much, though she'd never seen Charlie as exasperated as she'd seen him during the opening number. They walked back to the car in silence, and then once they were back in it, she propped her feet up on the dashboard and sighed.

"Lena?" he asked quizzically as the car started.

"Do you really think life could work out that well for someone that… shallow?"

"You're one of the least shallow people I know."

"That's not the question I asked you," Silena said, looking over at him. He was focusing on the road and the tip of his tongue was stuck out of the corner of his mouth as he concentrated, and she gave a small smile and leaned her head on his shoulder.

"I think it depends on whether or not they work for it. And she worked for it."

"Sometimes I don't want to be a halfblood."

"'Sometimes?' Only sometimes?"

"Okay, a lot of the time. I get boxed in, ya know? One day I just want to leave camp and never come back."

Leave behind that stupid bracelet and the stupid Rite of Passage and all the stupid Aphrodite stereotypes. She just wanted to be free for a fucking second, be a normal teenager.

But she was never going to get that.

Charlie was quiet, his eyes still focused entirely on the road.

"Would I be with you?"

"It's just a dream, Charlie. A fantasy, really."

"Yeah, but would you leave me behind?"

"I don't know," she said, honestly, keeping her eyes as focused on the road as his. "It depends on whether or not you'd try to bring me back."

"I wouldn't. Not unless you were in danger."

"I'm a halfblood; I'm always in danger." She paused and lifted her head off of his shoulder. "Charlie?"

"Hmm?"

"What're you gonna do, when all of this is over?" He was quiet for a minute, and Silena was about to tell him to forget it, when he sighed.

"I'm gonna get my GED so I can go to college. I'm going to get married and I'm going to be a father, and I'm never going to stop being the best for them."

"You'll make a great father, Charlie."

"I think you'll be a pretty good mother. The way you interact with the younger kids at camp…"

"You, too."

Neither of them said anything about how unlikely it was Charlie would even make it to college, let alone they'd both become parents. They just sat in comfortable, denial-filled silence as they made their way back to camp. Silena knew, deep down, that they wouldn't be running away from their responsibilities anytime soon, but gods… it was a nice dream.

* * *

 **A/N: The next update should be September 14!**


	10. Say You Want Me

**DISCLAIMER: I am not the owner of either the characters or songs!**

 **A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviews, favorites, and follows! They all make me so happy; you have no idea.**

* * *

He'd thought it so many times. When they were driving, playing Capture The Flag, just sitting side by side at campfires. He was too afraid to say it. If he did, he knew what would happen. She would break his heart. He'd hoped she wouldn't, but now that he realized just how head over heels he was, he was panicking.

He thought it again as they drove down towards Montauk, where they were supposed to be meeting up with Percy while his school was on spring break. It was more of an impromptu, four member war council than anything else, but it was at a beach and supposedly Sally was going to make them mac and cheese and blue chocolate chip cookies. Silena had wanted to ride pegasi to make the trip shorter, but Annabeth had wanted to practice her driving, so they'd elected to drive the almost two hour drive instead. Of course, Charles had drafted the first forty minutes, so he was behind the wheel.

She and Annabeth were spread out over the car's backseat, singing some pop song loudly at the top of their lungs. He smiled back at them, almost wishing he knew the words. Silena's voice was beautiful, but after sitting next to her at campfires all these years, he wasn't surprised. Annabeth was pretty good, too, which did kind of surprise him.

"When's it my turn?" Silena asked, leaning towards the driver's seat.

"Ten more minutes," he said, resisting the urge to turn his head so he could kiss her. As if sensing his dilemma, she leaned in a little farther and kissed his cheek.

After two driver switches, four stops because apparently Annabeth has the bladder of a goldfish, and twenty minutes trying to get back to the highway so they could use the correct exit, they were pulling into the driveway of Percy's Montauk house. He came out of the door when the car pulled up and he and Annabeth almost tackled each other in a hug before awkwardly pulling away. Silena sent him a look that screamed, "Were we like that?!" that he laughed at, but quickly had to turn into fake coughing when Percy and Annabeth gave him a weird look. Silena smirked at him as they went to the trunk to get their bags.

Sally, the smart woman she was, had asked Charles to bunk with Percy on the top floor, while Annabeth and Silena were in the guest room on the first floor. She and Paul even demonstrated to them how loudly the stairs creak, which heavily embarrassed Percy. When he asked why she and Paul were doing all this, she feigned innocence and said that she knew Silena and Charles were dating and didn't want anything Chiron wouldn't approve of on her hands. Silena rolled her eyes at him when she said that, almost as if he didn't know as well as she did that Chiron had the rules he did mostly for appearances and if you were dedicated enough, you could get away with virtually anything. That and the harpies weren't as fearsome or as dedicated as people thought.

They had a bonfire that night. Paul and Sally left them mostly in charge with the stipulation that no alcohol was to be involved. Apparently that meant everything else was fair game in Silena's mind, as she sat on his lap and kissed him a lot. Annabeth and Percy were too caught up in their own conversation to notice, which he didn't mind.

He thought it again. It seemed like something out of a romcom- an unseasonably warm night, a bonfire on the beach, surrounded by friends after seven months of pure heaven.

"Silena?" he whispered quietly.

"Hm?"

"I have-"

The words died on his lips as she kissed him, slowly. Someone cleared their throat and she pulled back with what sounded like a groan. He was expecting to find himself face to face with a gloating Percy or an embarrassed Annabeth, but was surprised- though he shouldn't have been- that it was simply Paul.

"Sally and I are going to bed now. We expect you all to behave and to return to the house soon. Understood?"

"Yes, Mr. Blofis," Silena replied with a sickeningly sweet smile that all of them- maybe even Paul- knew was utter bullshit. He gave a small laugh, shaking his head at her.

"Thank you, Silena. And please call me Paul; Mr. Blofis is what my students call me, and I hope not to have the misfortune of being your teacher."

"I'm a great student, Mr. Blofis. Chemistry especially."

"Ha," Percy said, and when everyone turned to stare at him added, "Because she's the daughter of the love goddess, and having chemistry-"

"That's not what I meant, Percy," Silena said, sounding like she was trying not to laugh, "But I suppose that's true, too."

"Well, I'm not surprised that either form of chemistry is your forte," he said with a smile. Silena laughed and snuggled closer against Charles, which he didn't think was helping their case.

"We'll be in soon, Paul," Percy promised, and Paul nodded and headed back towards the house.

"Would you guys kill us if we snuck off for a little while?" Silena asked.

"No, but Beckendorf and I have to go up the stairs at the same time. And we can't really all be downstairs talking, either," Percy said.

"We won't be long; I promise."

"Go," Annabeth said, and Silena smiled gratefully at her before hopping off of him, pulling him to his feet, and running down to the ocean, nicely out of view of both the bonfire and the house they were staying at. He couldn't help but wonder what was on her mind.

Then she stripped down to a bikini, and he knew immediately.

"It's March!" he yelled after her as she dived in. Sighing, he undid his belt and pushed his jeans down before pulling off his t-shirt and going in after her. "Holy fuck!"

Silena just laughs at him.

"It's not _that_ bad."

"It's still March in New York! How are you not frozen, little miss South Carolina?"

"I haven't lived in South Carolina in years! And it's not that bad, mister New York!"

"Bullshit," he whispered, getting deeper and deeper into the water and cursing this girl that he was head over heels for.

"Now was that so hard?" she teased, swimming towards him and wrapping her arms around her neck. He smiled back at her, then with no warning hoisted her legs up around his waist and pulled her against him. "Charlie!"

"Shut up before we get caught," he whispered, kissing her. She sighed and kissed him back. He pulled away after a couple minutes to breathe and whispered, "I love you."

She froze and he started to panic. He had a bad feeling he knew what was coming and started to pull away from her, but she laid her hand against his chest and used her other hand to tilt his chin towards her.

"Sil-"

She kissed him again, pushing herself back towards him and winding her arms back around him. Despite no words leaving her mouth, Charles couldn't help but feel like this was her saying it back to him in a way that was easier for her to do. He wasn't surprised, really. If she had said anything else, she would've broken both of their hearts.

They'd made out a lot, but they'd never gone farther than that. He had a feeling that was going to change very soon.

(He was right.)

Percy and Annabeth were still talking when they walked back up the beach to them. They helped them put the fire out, then all went back to the house. Annabeth went straight to the guest room, yawning, while Percy headed over to the stairs. Silena kissed him, smiling, then followed Annabeth. Charles watched her until the room's door shut, then headed up the stairs without checking to see if Percy was behind him.

"What were you two up to?"

"Shut up, Jackson."


	11. Silent Screams

**DISCLAIMER: I am not the owner of either the characters or songs!**

 **A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviews, favorites, and follows! They all make me so happy; you have no idea.**

 **Hi! It's been a while. To make up for it, this is the longest chapter of the whole thing, inspired by "This Love".**

 **Takes place a few months after Chapter 7, "Salt In The Wound"**

* * *

Things were bad. They all knew it.

On the one hand, Chris was a lot better. Silena could see the change in him clearly, even though he'd spent most of the summer in the infirmary, and the change it was bringing about in Clarisse. She'd been as surprised as anyone when the Ares girl had approached her about her feelings for Chris, but it was nice to see something that vulnerable in Clarisse, a vulnerability that reminded Silena of herself sometimes.

She liked to think that she and Charlie were going well. Her heart sped up every time he came near her and she loved kissing him. He always smelled like smoke and sweat due to him spending a lot of time in the forge, but she didn't mind. Before they had started dating, she had spent a lot of her free time with him, so that wasn't as different, but now she was more content to just be near him, especially if they were holding hands or cuddling. No one believed her about Charles Beckendorf being a huge cuddler, but it didn't matter. When she was done with her duties for the day, she would sit on the workbench behind him in the forge, working on homework. It was nice. She liked to think her parents had been like this once, just together, but she wasn't sure if Aphrodite thought the way she did about love.

Not that she was in love with Charlie. It was way too early to even think about that, right? Four months into a relationship between two teenagers? And, more importantly, when one was expected to perform Aphrodite's Rite of Passage? And, even more importantly, in a war they were on the losing side of?

Perhaps the Rite of Passage wasn't a big deal, but the war definitely was. It was only December, just about six months since the Battle of the Labyrinth, and Luke- or Kronos, whoever he was now- wasn't giving them a break. He kept demanding more and more information from her, but she held her ground. She had always had a stake in the war, but somehow, the fact that _Charlie_ was on the front lines meant more now. Maybe it was because they were dating, but she had had a major crush on him for a while before they got together. Maybe it was because now, even in the most private and intimate of moments, she could see all of the emotions he held for her reflected in his eyes, and knew her eyes looked the same. Somehow, it made everything more real for her, the fact that he cared for her in _that way_ , a way she'd craved to be cared for since she was a little girl. If everything worked out the way she wanted it, she and Charlie would be together for the rest of their lives, no matter how long that was. Honestly, maybe that was why she held her ground the way she did. She needed him to always look at her that way, and if she gave too much to Luke, no matter how threatened she was, he might stop. In her opinion, of course, Luke had gone way too far too many times, sometimes with her help. When she was younger, she gave him more than she would ever dream of these days. But she'd grown up. She'd found her people.

And Luke was not one of them.

She needed an out, but the only one she could think of would be to get caught in the crossfire, and she couldn't do that. Charlie, Clarisse, all her friends, her siblings, and everyone else at camp needed her. She could pull a Snape and try and double cross her double cross, but she wasn't smart enough for that. She was completely, utterly, stuck. It made her cry sometimes, but it's not like she could talk to anyone about it. How many people could relate to spying for a man you hated?

Well, Chris could.

When she'd found out about Chris, she'd been shocked. She hadn't realized Luke had _two_ spies in Camp Half-Blood, but Chris didn't have the seniority she had. She hadn't felt like she could breathe when he was there, and when he left, she'd been relieved. He hadn't known she was the spy, but she was sure Luke had told him it was someone on the War Council. It's the other reason she'd helped Clarisse, perhaps the more selfish one, because Chris deserved to be happy after the hell Luke had put him through. Not that Chris knew that she knew the half of it.

God, this whole thing was messing with her head. She really needed out.

Now that she and Charlie were dating, she'd been invited to Christmas with his adopted dad. She had never actually met the man, but he had a big heart if he was willing to adopt Charlie after his mom had died. It was just a whole new stressor to add on, but she couldn't tell Charlie that. He was excited to go, especially since Chicago was supposedly beautiful in the winter, and she couldn't take that away from him. She could shove everything down for the four days they would be there and hope no one would notice.

They decided against flying, even though Zeus had a lot bigger fish to fry than a son of Hephaestus and daughter of Aphrodite in his domain, and Chiron said they could take the Camp Half-Blood car. The drive was almost thirteen hours, so they were splitting it out over two days and stopping about halfway through, somewhere pretty south of Cleveland, according to the map. It was nice, just her and Charlie. She'd volunteered to drive the first leg, even though it was longer becauses it was mostly just highway stuff, and she lost herself in the road and the music and Charlie's voice. It was a long drive, for sure, and they took more breaks then they probably needed to to pee and lazily make out in the backseat, but they eventually made it to the hotel. The front desk clerk eyed them oddly as they checked in, but soon they were alone in the hotel room in sweatpants and Camp Half-Blood t-shirts. They cuddled together in the bed, Silena using Charlie as a human pillow, with her head on his sternum and her legs in between his, as _The Princess Bride_ played on the TV.

"I didn't know this was considered a Christmas movie," he remarked, and she laughed, burying herself deeper in his embrace.

"It always is at my house. Dad hates traditional Christmas movies. Instead it was _Love Actually_ , which technically counts, and _The Princess Bride_ and _Titanic._ For him, Christmas wasn't a time for Santa and Rudolph, you know? It was about love and family," she replied. "Though he had a soft spot for _Elf_."

"Oh my God, my mom had the biggest crush on James Caan; _Elf_ was always the top of her holiday viewing list," Charlie replied.

"James Caan? Really?"

"Hey, we can't all be as ruggedly handsome as yours truly," he said, kissing her temple. She laughed and smiled, breathing in his aftershave. It didn't quite smell right without the sweat and smoke that accompanied him in the forge, but the heart beat pounding in her ears was his, and his alone.

They finally fell asleep sometime after midnight, his arms wrapped tightly around her. She sighed and closed her eyes tightly shut, wondering if maybe, in a few years, this would be her life: Waking up next to Charlie every morning, prepared to take on the day.

That implied a lot, though. That they both survived. That he didn't hate her after he found out- because she was sure, eventually, he would find out. She hadn't brought the bracelet, had angrily told Luke- well, Kronos now, she supposed, but it was so much easier to think of him as Luke- to go fuck himself and that she would have nothing to report for the next week. He'd taken it surprisingly well, no threats or anything, which only meant he expected a motherload she couldn't give when they returned.

She shifted in his arms, tangling her legs in with his and listening to his heartbeat. It was calming, and she focused on that rather than the other things. Right now, she and Charlie were happy, and together. That was all that mattered.

* * *

They arrived at his dad's place late the next afternoon. Her hair, irritatingly, had changed color overnight from black to a bright red, and her once hazel eyes were their natural blue again, but it meant her wardrobe did not compliment her the way it was supposed to. Charlie had laughed and reminded her that she was still the most beautiful girl he had ever met, and she'd smiled, letting him kiss her forehead.

Mr. Holland, though he insisted she call him Jonathan, was nice, and reminded her a lot of her own dad. He clearly loved having Charlie there, and Charlie loved being there. He'd only left New York a couple times in his life since arriving at Camp, and it was clear he was really making an effort with Jonathan. They got along really well.

Jonathan knew some of their situation. He knew Charlie wasn't normal, and that was why he spent all year at Camp, and he seemed to know something about smell, since he'd apologized for how smelly he'd made the apartment but he wasn't sure how strong it needed to be to mask their scent. Silena had laughed, since it honestly didn't bother her and it didn't bother Charlie, either, but she knew it meant a lot to him that Jonathan had gone to these lengths for him. Growing up, she had had two run ins with monsters before being sent to Camp, one of which was with a satyr there to help her after her father, able to see through the Mist, had called for one after the first monster incident. Chicago was a much bigger city, though, than Summerville, so it was probably for the best.

Jonathan did a good job of blending three people's worth of Christmas traditions across their four days together. They watched her dad's non-Christmas movies alongside Charlie's more traditional ones, went ice skating and sledding and made peppermint chocolate chip pancakes, Jonathan's invention that she knew she would dream of for weeks to come.

Their last day with Jonathan is the day after Christmas, in which they feast on leftovers from the big meal they'd shared with Jonathan and his extended family the day before, and Charlie tried to teach her how to make his mom's gingerbread cookies completely from memory and then they accidentally cooked them too long and burned them enough that there was some smoke and the alarm went off. They'd managed get the smoke out through the window, and they'd started laughing hysterically and kissed each other deeply, until Jonathan coughed and it broke them apart. She was kind of sad to leave, but was missing her family at camp, so it felt right.

Even if it meant she'd have to face Luke again.

* * *

She stood next to Thalia's Pine, looking down Half-Blood Hill. She was tired from the drive, could barely keep her eyes open, and her sword was heavy in her hand. The army was charging towards her, and she could hear people screaming at her to do something, but she was so tired. She made her way forward just as something large charged at her and she flung her sword out. It was blocked quickly.

"How could you!" they yelled at her, and she looked up. Drew was standing in front of her, and she pulled her sword back.

"You betrayed us!" Now it was Annabeth, who wasn't done fighting, and Silena had only seconds to block her.

"I'm sorry!" she yelled, and Percy laughed in her face, yelling, "Sorry doesn't fix it, Silena!" He stabbed at her and she rolled, falling down the hill.

"I can't believe I ever loved you," Charlie said. She was spread out on the grass, her sword sticking up in the air, and she looked up. He was staring down at her, pure hatred in his eyes.

"Charlie, I can explain!" she yelled, but he was walking closer to her, unsheathing the dagger on his toolbelt. "Charlie!" she yelled again, but he didn't stop until he was in front of her, dagger pointed at her. "CHARLIE!"

"Silena!"

She bolted up, breathing heavily and trying to see through her tears. Charlie had his hands on either side of her face, wiping at her tears with his thumbs.

"I'm here, I'm here," he said, and he quickly pressed his lips to hers.

"Charlie," she whispered, still panting, and reached out and grabbed his hand.

"You're okay; it was just a dream," he said. She nodded, trying to get her breathing back under control. When she had, she looked at him, right in his eyes full of concern. Concern, note hate. Not yet.

"Charlie," she said again, her voice breaking. "In my dream, you-"

"Hey, nothing bad is going to happen to me," he said. She didn't have the heart to tell him that wasn't her dream, so she just nodded.

"I just don't want you to hate me," she said, quietly.

"I could never hate you, Silena," he replied, and he pressed his forehead to hers. "There's nothing that you could do that could make me hate you."

She wasn't sure if she believed him. After all, how could he expect her to be the spy?

Instead, she kissed him, desperately, just needing the reassurance that he was there and he cared for her. They laid back down in the bed, his arms securely around her. She closed her eyes, and prayed to her mother that somehow, Charlie was right, and not even this could make him hate her.

* * *

 **A/N: Hope you enjoyed! Reviews are great motivators, so feel free to let me know what you thought!**


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